


Sins of a Mother

by IncendiaGlacies



Category: DC's Legends of Tomorrow (TV)
Genre: Aftermath, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Gen, Heavy Material Handled Lightly, Introspection, Kidnapping, Light Angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-22
Updated: 2019-10-22
Packaged: 2020-12-28 15:40:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,194
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21139094
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IncendiaGlacies/pseuds/IncendiaGlacies
Summary: “I love you,” Gideon said softly. She reached out for him but Jonas pulled away.“I know.” It was the only reason he could stand to look at her some days.  She had raised him, fed him, clothed him. She had stolen him.





	Sins of a Mother

**Author's Note:**

> I once had a real fic idea with real plot, but it refused to come together in the details, so instead I give you the aftermath of that almost fic.

“Are you sleeping at night? You used to have nightmares when you were younger.”

“Yes.” Jonas stared at the woman in front of him. She had aged, that was true. Her hair was limp and just on the verge of going silver, her grey uniform made her skin look paler than it was. But when she smiled at Jonas, her eyes crinkled and shined like he was the most perfect being in the universe.

It was terrifying how much she loved him. Still loved him.

“What about your vegetables? Are you eating your vegetables?”

“Yes,” he said tiredly. She still treated him like a child, which made sense since that was when he had finally left her.

“Because you know you need to eat them to get taller.”

“I’m taller than you now, Gideon.”

The word still felt wrong on his tongue. She had raised him, fed him, clothed him. She had stolen him. Gideon’s smile dampened and she looked down at her hands, wanting to fidget, but the inmates weren’t allowed any objects. Jonas wanted to reach across and hold her hand, but the guard was looking at them and wouldn’t approve. He only had an hour with her until he had to leave, he had to make the most of it.

“How are you doing in here? Is the food getting better?” he joked.

Gideon giggled softly. “The chocolate pudding still tastes like dirt. Prison food is never any good.”

“Getting into any fights?’

“I can hold my own.”

When he had been younger, thought she had been his mother, Jonas had thought she was invincible. His brave, steadfast, stubborn mother. Now that he was older, he could see the cracks in her façade, the gleam in her eye that Miranda would have called insanity. All Jonas could see was a small, fragile woman who had made a decision and ruined all their lives. Still, he couldn’t bring himself to hate her completely. After all, he had been the one to beg her to plead guilty, for a lighter sentence.

“My parole hearing is coming up next month. Will you be there?” she asked suddenly.

Jonas hesitated, looking at the table. “I-I don’t know if that’s a good idea.” They’d never approve…his parents.

Gideon’s smile lost its shine. “Oh, of course. It’s just that, if they heard from you, how much I looked after-”

“It’s not a good idea.”

“I raised you.”

“You kidnapped me,” he said coldly.

“I love you,” Gideon said softly. She reached out for him but Jonas pulled away.

“I know.” It was the only reason he could stand to look at her some days. “Do you even feel bad for what you did?”

Gideon looked down, the figure of a sad, sorry, pathetic woman. “I loved you from the second I set eyes on you.”

Jonas sighed and shook his head. “It was wrong.”

“I-I know that now.” The words were monotonous, simply a recitation of what she’d been told to say over and over, probably from her lawyer. Perhaps one day she would believe them. “I’ve been really good, Jonas,” she insisted. “I have. Good behaviour and everything. They even let me work in the prison hospital now.”

“Good.” Despite how misguided her actions had been, Jonas knew his moth – Gideon, had always loved helping people.

“Will you come see me when I’m out on parole?”

“You don’t even know that you’re getting it.” His…parents would fight her every step of the way.

“It’s been five years. Will you come visit?” she asked again.

Jonas nodded, not knowing whether it was a lie or the truth. “I’ll see.”

Gideon beamed so brightly at him it hurt his eyes to see. “The hearing’s on Halloween. Oh, maybe we can spend Christmas together. You used to love decorating the tree while we sang carols.”

It was better to let her continue with her delusions, give her false hope than to upset her. The doctors had said that while she was doing better, her mental state still wasn’t the strongest. She had spend a long time in solitary over the years.

“You should make a list of all the things we can do. I missed out a lot on the last five years.”

He nodded, hardly even hearing her anymore. “Listen, the reason I came, I got into university. Ivy University.”

“Oh Jonas, that’s brilliant! And such a good school!”

“Yeah, yeah.” He swallowed the lump in his throat. “It’s far.”

“It is.”

“I – I won’t be able to visit you as often,” he said quietly.

“No, you won’t.”

Jonas looked up at her, looking for any signs of a meltdown, any signs he would have to call the officer and have him restrain her. He’d only had to do it once, when he’d told her about the Mother’s Day present he was giving Miranda. Jonas had learned that day not to speak of his other mother again.

But she didn’t look like she was about to yell or scream. She simply smiled at him serenely, reassuringly even. The way she used to whenever he’d come home with a bad test grade and she’d tell him he’d do better on the next one and then make him a snack.

“You’ll be all right, won’t you? I mean, you have to be good, Gideon. You can’t give them any reason to put you in solitary.”

“I told you, I’ve been on very good behaviour lately.”

They must have changed her medicines again. Jonas hoped this one stayed and worked.

“Don’t worry about me, Jonas. I’ll be fine. Go, I know you always wanted it.”

He did. He had finally found the perfect escape from his past. He could take it and never look back and they both knew it.

“All I ever wanted was for you to be happy and loved. That’s all. Are you happy?”

He didn’t know. He tried to be.

“Are you loved?”

“Yes.”

“Then the rest will work itself out. It always does.”

The buzzer rang, indicating their time was up. Gideon stood up as the officer walked over and cuffed her wrists again.

“It was lovely to see you again, Jonas. Thank you for visiting. Oh, Joe, will you please give him the present I made for him?” she asked sweetly. The officer nodded and gently pushed her along.

“I’ll see you next week,” said Jonas, standing up with her.

She smiled, no doubt sensing the lie. “I love you, Jonas. Always and forever. Please remember that.”

It was hard to ever forget it. That was the problem. He watched as she exited the room with the other inmates. Joe came back out and handed him a scrapbook.

“She made it for you. Collected old newspapers and stuff. Asked for your old yearbooks too. They’re public in the schools so we couldn’t say no,” he said.

“It’s fine.” Jonas took the heavy book gingerly in his hands and headed out to the car. His father was leaning against it, jaw still set in the stern position it was when Jonas had gone in. Rip never liked coming here but refused to let Jonas go alone.

“Done?” he asked curtly.

Jonas knew his father wasn’t the best at showing emotions, and losing a child for thirteen years had only made it worse. Jonas nodded and attempted to give his father a brief smile. Rip returned it and patted his shoulder before entering the car.

“Her parole is coming up,” said Jonas as he put on his seatbelt.

Rip’s hands tightened on the steering wheel. “I know.”

“Are you going?”

“Yes.”

“To speak against her.”

“Yes.”

Jonas knew he shouldn’t defend her but he couldn’t help himself. “You know she never hurt me, not once. She loved me and looked after me and-”

“Kidnapped you. She kidnapped you and we lost our baby, our son. She took that from us in some random act of selfishness.”

“She’s just not in the right state of mind,” Jonas said weakly.

“Which is why she shouldn’t be let out,” Rip said as gently as he could. “You’re all grown up. What if she tried again with another child? It’s too dangerous.”

Jonas sighed, knowing what Rip said was true. “Miranda won’t like it either, will she?”

He saw his father’s jaw clench when he used his birth mother’s name rather than title. How could he though? It was hard enough to find out his mother wasn’t actually his mother but a criminal and then adding on another mother into the mix. It made his head spin, his heart hurt, trying to reconcile right and wrong. Calling his father ‘dad’ was easier, Gideon had never been married, Jonas had never had a father figure. But he’d had a mother.

It was just that his mother had kidnapped him at birth from the very hospital he was born in thus causing his real mother and father excruciating years of heartbreak and pain.

“No, she won’t. I’d rather you not tell her.”

Jonas nodded, silently promising to do so. He knew Miranda had changed (as Rip had) over the years after the kidnapping. Gone was the bold and outspoken woman, replaced by someone who was more fearful, more suspicious of the world. Gideon had done that. Gideon had ruined these peoples’ lives.

More than once Jonas had wondered what his life would have been like if he hadn’t been kidnapped, reported missing. Would he help his parents put up the Christmas tree like he always helped Gideon? Would Miranda cheer loudly at his soccer games as she had? Would Rip hug him after the nightmares he’d had as a child? Maybe he could have had a little brother or sister if his parents hadn’t been so terrified to have another child. Maybe he could have had a dog, if Gideon wasn’t around always insisting he wasn’t responsible enough. He could have had big birthday parties, something Gideon had never given him. Now he knew it was probably so they didn’t draw attention to themselves. But with Rip and Miranda, maybe they would have thrown him huge parties, marking the milestone of every year. He would have known when his real birthday was, two months before he thought it was.

“What’s that?” asked Rip, drawing him out of his thoughts of what-ifs. They tortured him constantly from the day he’d realized the truth.

“Present, from my – from Gideon.” He gave Rip a sheepish look, and his father just returned it with an understanding one. A look that filled Jonas with even more guilt than before.

“Open it.”

“Really?” Jonas had planned on waiting until he got to the privacy of his room, sneaking the scrapbook in so he didn’t upset Miranda.

“Yes. I’d – I’d like to know what she’s giving my son.”

Quietly, Jonas nodded and opened the book, flipping through the thick creamy, cardstock pages. Gideon had plastered his life into these pages, in newspaper clippings, awards announcements, yearbook photos. A memoir to him.

“This must have been all the pictures she had of me,” he said quietly, looking through them. “But how did she…”

“Miranda gave them,” Rip said tightly.

“What?”

Rip shrugged. “They turned everything involving you over to us after the investigation. And the pictures – of you and her – it was a painful reminder. So, she gave them back.”

Jonas hadn’t even realized his two mothers had met beyond the first time. He nodded and continued looking through the pages. The newspaper articles becoming more morbid, as the truth became known to the public. He shivered as he remembered the trial, watching his mother be taken away, hounded by the news outlets. His parents trying to shield him from her, from running to her and hugging her one last time.

The book had begun with happier memories of the two of them, dressing up, hugs and kisses. And as time went on, it told the story of how they were torn apart, how Jonas returned to his ‘real’ parents and his mother went to jail for her crimes. He skipped those pages quickly. He’d lived it, he didn’t need to see it immortalized on paper. Then it turned to him, just him, on his own without her. Jonas’ life after Gideon, after his entire world had been turned upside down and flipped inside out.

He stopped and stared at the last picture. The three of them. Rip, Miranda, and Jonas. He touched it softly. Rip glanced over to see what had made him go silent and looked at the picture in surprise.

“How’d she get that?” he demanded.

“School website. They put up the pictures so everyone knows who the graduating class is. Mum – Gideon’s always been good with computers.”

“Clearly.”

Jonas bit his lip, knowing Rip didn’t approve. And nor should he. Still, Jonas saw it for what it was. An olive branch, and apology, an understanding that Jonas was moving forward without the woman who stole him away, raised him, mothered him. It was a sign of hope that maybe one day, one long far away day, they’d both be able to exist without the other.


End file.
